Yuletide Letter - 2015

Greetings, Yuletide writer. This is the standard letter. All sections are labeled, and I hope everything's nice and clear. My apologies if it's not.

1. General

I'm pretty easy. I don't really mind gen, shipfic, or porn. No real squicks. I have a couple canons that if you want to write porn, you should probably know that I totally dig tentacles and xeno I'm just saying. And incest. I don't mind violence that much either, as long as you're not super gratuitous about it. I like it dark or fluffy, but generally I prefer to stick to canon tone. But all my canons can support both, so hey. If all else fails, I really seriously would love just a normal, canon-ish gen fic.

I dig, um...I like exploring game mechanics inside the story. Melodrama, both straight and self-aware. Huge, powerful civilizations that fell to ruin and then get discovered in the modern day. History, and how events get passed down and twisted. The intersection of magic and technology. Apocalypses. Post-apocalypses. The occult. Cosmic horror. Explosions and giant robots. Worldbuilding. All the worldbuilding.

I generally love bunches of characters from each canon and some of my requests might involve them, feel free to ignore those if you only want to write the nominated characters. If you do feel like writing the others, though, great! And if you don't want to include all characters I picked, also great! I try to get as broad a range as I can because I love everyone, so feel free to drag in other people or focus on just one of the requested characters. It's all good.

To the nitpicky FFA/_coal types: Just because the five-minute fandom doesn't have as many words as the RPG doesn't mean I prefer the RPG. I like all these fandoms, that's why I requested them. Cool your jets.

2. Canon Specifics

Castlevania: Lement of Innocense

What I love: Demons, magic, the occult, the lore. Castlevania has a huge, weird base of mythology, and I love it all. It's the same sort of reason I love Shin Megami Tensei. I also like all the weird world implications for a bunch of vampire hunters that work for the church. But mostly lots of demons and magic.

Prompts: Any sort of pre-canon adventures, when things weren't so crappy for our cast would be fine. What were Sara and Elisabetha doing while their boys were off on Crusade? (did they even know each other?) Did anyone have previous supernatural encounters? Or post-canon fallout of all the shit that went down. What does Rinaldo do afterward? Does Leon ever properly move on (even with becoming a vampire-hunting hobo)? I personally think it took Mathias a year at most to realise his goal was completely stupid, but I'd be interested in any look you want to take at his turning into the Dracula we all know from later. And how do he and Rinaldo know each other, anyway? I'd be into any sort of exploration of alchemy you feel up to (making shit up completely is fine. The devs did.)

Final Fantasy Tactics

What I love: Political intrigue. Class issues. All the gritty war and politics stuff is great. The demons are cool as they relate to that, but I'm not really into the mystical stuff for it's own sake. I also like how the entire game is framed by a historian and what it says about true/told history.

Prompts: For Ramza, I'd like to see how he relates to his brothers. Were they around each other at all growing up? How did their terrible fates affect him? I'd love something creepy/sad with Ramza and zombie Zalbag. I actually really like Zalbag on his own. Even though Algus takes a lot of the blame for Teta's death, Zalbag was still the one that gave the order. Did he even notice? Dycedrag obviously never cared, but Zalbag is generally the honourable Beoulve brother, so I'm interested in taking a closer look at that. Or look at religion and how it affects all the Beoulve brothers.

A deeper look at Miluda would be interesting, maybe contrasting with her brother. What did she do in the Death Corps, during the war and afterwards? She seems more practical than her brother, did they ever clash? Did she ever meet any of the highborn characters during the war? What would've changed if she had survived?

For Reis, anything to do with being a dragon and adjusting to being human again - especially as she seems to have been affected permenantly by it. Or more about her and Beowulf, maybe something if they decide to leave the group or survive the final battle?

Like I said, I dig discovering ancient, lost civilizations. Ramza and his generics going on a Job and finding one of the ruins would be fun. Maybe a tie-in to FFXII? What kinds of things are they digging up in Doug? How does the team react to Worker 8? Do they find out anything about Ivalice's history? Does Mustadio really understand anything they find?

Note: I'm more familiar with the PSX names, and you can probably tell. 10 years of habit is hard to break, you know? If you're familiar with them too, I'd like it if you'd use those. If you're not, don't worry about it. ...but don't feel like you have to imitate the PSX version's dialogue too. :)

Magnetic By Nature

What I love: The artstyle of the game and what it says about whatever created the robots, the lonliness and robot friendship, the potential for worldbuilding, robots and more robots.

Prompts: Anything to flesh it out! Who created the robots? For what purpose? What were their lives like before the end? What caused the end? How did these robots survive? Are there any more out there? What are they going to do once Point One finishes charging them up again? How much longer will their batteries last after the game? How sentient are they, really? Would a lot of different robots like this have met before the end? What do they think of each other now they're together?

Persona 2

What I love: This is where I love all the occult/mystical stuff. I basically love how crazy the game gets, all because of the power of human belief. How the characters relate to each other and grow across the course of the games is also really fun.

Prompts: Well, I'm one of the...two Nyarlathotep/Philemon shippers in existence, so I'd dig something with them. Doesn't have to be romantic or anything, since they don't do that well, but even stuff looking into the deeper workings of the Persona world would be wonderful. Maybe tie all the Persona games together? 3 and 4 are pretty different from 1 and 2, what happened? (besides 'there was a decade break and then they reinvented the series') When did they arise from the collective unconsciousness? Did Nyx have anything to do with it? Were there other bets on the future of humanity? If so, did Nyarlathotep ever win and what happened then? If not, what else do they do? I dig Lovecraft stuff too, so working in some Mythos references will never make me unhappy.

Shin Megami Tensei IV

What I love: I still love the mystical/occult stuff. I love demons running around the world and humanity having to deal with that. I love the post-apocalyptic setting, both the 1500 years after setting of the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado and the much more recent apocalypses of the various Tokyos. I love the worldbuilding, basically.

Prompts: Worldbuilding!Demons! Demons and worldbuilding! I'd love to hear more about demons and how they relate to humans. Does the hero make friends with demons? (does he get...more involved?) Do his opinions change as he goes from stumbling around in Naruku to fighting top angels/demons? Do certain demons not get along in the party? Are they useful outside of battle? Cross-pantheon interaction would be great. Some of my personal favourite demons are Anubis, Black Maria, and Fafnir, but feel free to use whoever you like.

For specific characters, I requested Akira. I'd love to find out more about him and leading fractions across the various Tokyos. What happened in the founding of the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado? How did the Akira of Blasted Tokyo keep everything together during those 25 years? Did the Akira of Infernal Tokyo manage to make some gains for equality after the heroes left?

I also requested Nozomi. I'd love to find out more about her daily life as a hunter and living in Tokyo. Is she old enough to remember before the ceiling? How did she get into hunting and photography? Does she ever use demons outside of battle? What happened after she became leader of the Tuatha Dé Danann? How did Brigid react to finding out Lady Danu wasn't coming back and there was a human in her place?

For Walter, I'd just like to know more about becoming the Chaos Hero. SMTIV actually gives Law and Chaos heroes some development before sending them off to jerkass ideologue town, and I'd like to find out more about how Walter got from "man class systems suck" to "let's unleash a flood of demons on Tokyo! Yeah!" If you can find a way to justify getting on Tayama's shit about Reds and somehow being okay with Neurishers, extra cookies. Feel free to bring Jonathan in and do similar questions with him, I just didn't have the nomination space to put him in.

Super Robot Wars

What I love: The characters and their relationships. Comedy downtime with the various squads. The weaving together of various SRW canons to make something new. GIANT FIGHTING ROBOTS. BURNING SPIRIT. JAM PROJECT. SAVING THE EARTH WITH LOVE AND COURAGE.

Prompts: So I love the SRX Team, and I'd love just about anything with them. Slowly learning to get along, just hanging out, or training in their robots. How did they develop R-Formation? Even after they all become friends, are there any conflicts they have? I like Rai/Ryusei a lot, so something with them would be nice. Something with Rai's issues with opening up to people, or Ryusei's need to protect people coming in conflict with Rai's self-sacrificial streak. Or just dealing with Ryusei's nerdery. Actually for that, it's not really made a point of in OG1, but Bian Zoldark's also a giant robot nerd. I'd kind of like a fic where he and Ryusei unknowingly meet online and get into an argument about giant robots before/during the DC War. Or SRX threesomes. I'm always down for those.

I like the Bransteins in general, so something about them would also be good. A story focusing on Rai and Leona's childhood would be cool. It seems they grew up together, what was that like? I get the impression Maier wasn't around very much, and Elzam had to be a dad to them. Or maybe not, whichever you want. How did Rai and Leona feel about the expectations placed on them? They've clearly accepted them by the time of the game, but did they ever want to do something else? Or how did the people at home react to the Vanishing (Berserk) Trooper incident? I'd also like to see more of the Treue (Troye) Unit, so a story about Leona's time there would be great. I like the Octo Squad too, and something about Leona trying to adjust to her new teammates and their very...nonmilitary way of doing things would be super fun. Or how did she and Tasuku become an item?

For Sanger, what did he do before he started piloting giant robots? How did he get into sword fighting? Stories about the old Aggressor squad would be great too. What was it like trying to program mechs when no one had ever piloted one before? (...besides Gilliam) What was it like being under Adler (and why did he not just cleave the guy in the first place)? I also really like Lily, so something with her and Sanger in that time period would be great. Or adventures with Elzam once they meet up. Are Sanger's sword skills any use in the kitchen? :)

For Gilliam, well, I won't ask for knowing his entire backstory, because I've never played Hero Senki all the way through and I can't expect anyone else to have actually done so. (If you do know about Hero Senki and SRW 4, then feel free to bring all that in, I'd get a huge kick out of it. But that's even more of a longshot than SRW in the first place) OG2 establishes that he's a dimension hopper, at least. So some stuff about that effects him, and what it's like to stop and stay in one dimension (possibly permanently) would be interesting to me. What made him go from teaming up with Vindel of all people to choosing to stay in the OGverse forever? Or time in the Aggressors, like with Sanger. He's the only one that actually knows how to pilot them, does anyone else notice? Or something focusing on his work in intelligence.

Note: Sticking to OG1 and 2 is fine. I've played OGG but I haven't gotten to 2ndOG myself, and I'm not going to demand perfect familiarity with multiple untranslated RPGs. Though if you want to go into the future and bring in stuff from J/Alpha 3, I have played those. I've played all the Alpha games so switching over to that continuity is fine too, even if I was mostly thinking of OG when I made the prompts.

3. Canon Review

All of these games should be buyable. The trickiest is probably SRW, as those games were only released in English for the GBA and are pretty rare now. There are ways *coughcoughVisual Boy Advancecoughcough*. Magnetic By Nature is ten bucks on Steam. Lament of Innocense, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, and Final Fantasy Tactics are all on PSN. You'll have to either buy P2: Innocent Sin for the PSP or download the fan translation. Buuuuuuuuut you probably don't want to play multiple 30+ hour games to review canon, do you?

Commentary-less playthrough. You probably don't need to watch all of this, but a little to get the feel of the game and each set of levels might not be a bad idea.

Super Robot Wars:

In-Progress LP. Specifically this is Original Generations, the PS2 remake of both the GBA OG games. It's through OG1 and into OG2 by now, so you can read up if the forums don't lock you out.

Shin Megami Tensei IV doesn't have any LPs or scripts that I know of. Sorry.

If you're desperate and realised you hate my other requests and need a canon quick, the shortest is easily Magnetic By Nature. It's basically a five-minute fandom. Then Castlevania, which is an action game and shouldn't take long to watch an LP of - or I beat it in like seven hours while completely hammered. It's on PSN, if you want to take the challenge.

Next easiest are Final Fantasy Tactics are Persona 2. If you just go for the LPs, they should take a couple days or so. SRW and SMTIV are 30-40 hour RPGs with no LPs and you'd absolutely have to buy SMTIV. I really don't recommenced trying to write those unless you already know the canon.